


Springtime Rains

by atamasco



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Everyone is Dead, I put in some quite light-hearted bits, M/M, and silver also shows up, as grim as that sounds it is surprisingly okay, dont worry its not all sad, flint is reunited with thomas and miranda, general melancholy musings over their lives, there's some sort of headcanon about silver's past, this is what happens when you listen to too much dream pop trip hop music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 23:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10864452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamasco/pseuds/atamasco
Summary: It seems that life, while it has to be lived forwards, can only be understood backwards.---James sits down by the creek; he has been sitting there for days, or maybe it has only been a couple of minutes. He knows that it is most likely both at the same time.A hand on his shoulder and a warm voice reach him, like sunlight touching his skin. ‘James’, Miranda says, ‘with all the life-threatening situations you have been in, I never would have thought that in the end you would die peacefully in your sleep.’He smiles.





	Springtime Rains

James sits down by the creek; he has been sitting there for days, or maybe it has only been a couple of minutes. He knows that it is most likely both at the same time.

A hand on his shoulder and a warm voice reach him, like sunlight touching his skin. ‘James’, Miranda says, ‘with all the life-threatening situations you have been in, I never would have thought that in the end you would die peacefully in your sleep.’

He smiles.

\---

Thomas is there too. ‘So soon’, he says to James, and takes him into his arms. They hold each other tight, breathing in the scent of the other.

‘We spent ten years away from each other’, James says when they break apart. ‘That was more than enough. I did not plan on reuniting here with you so soon, but I do not regret it in the least.’

\---

‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you’, James says.

‘I made my own choices’ Miranda responds. ‘There was nothing you could have done. And I am happy that at least the two of you still had a good amount of years together’, she says as she looks fondly at James and Thomas.

‘We did, though we missed you every day, dearest’ Thomas says.

\---

Grey clouds gather at the horizon. James feels the wind rush around him, like a storm is coming.

James turns around and sees him. He sees the man in front of him clearly, yet he sees him as everything he has ever been, all at the same time, united in one image. As a boy and as a man; as a thief, a pirate, a coward, and a liar. As his quartermaster, as his partner, his friend. John stares at him with a blank expression, then furrows his brows.

‘Am I…?’ he says. _Dead,_ he wants to say, but the word weighs heavy on his tongue.

‘Unmistakeably,’ James answers. 

‘So you’re also…?’

‘Definitely.’

John nods and looks around him with his mouth hanging open, gazes at the dunes and the grass and the endless blue sea. He squints slightly against the light. 

‘Is this…?’

‘Not sure. Though, Thomas and Miranda are here too, so there is no way this could be Hell.’

John looks at him. ‘And you’re here’, he says, with wonder in his voice.

‘I am. So it’s definitely not Heaven either.’

Johns lips curve into a hesitant smile, and James smiles back at him.

‘Is this really happening?’

‘I don’t know if it’s real,’ James says, ‘but it sure is happening.’

\---

They sit down in the sand, next to each other, their shoulders touching.

‘How’s Madi?’ James asks.

‘I don’t know’ John replies, a crooked grin on his face.

‘What do you mean?’ James says.

‘What I mean is, I haven’t seen her in a while.’

‘How come?’

‘Because I went looking for _you_ ’, John says, his grin growing wider yet more dishonest. ‘Found ya’, he says, and he bumps his shoulder playfully into James’s. James doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry.

\---

‘My parents are here,’ John says.

‘Oh’, James says. For all the times he has wondered about the mystery that was Johns past, somehow the thought of him having parents is as strange as it is evident. ‘Have you spoken to them?’

‘No’, John says, while drawing patterns in the sand with his index finger. ‘And I have no desire to do so. But I would like to meet my sister.’

They sit silently for a moment, while James lets the words sink in. ‘Your sister’, he says slowly, trying to wrap his mind around this new piece of information.

‘I had a twin sister. She was stillborn’, John says, staring intently at his drawing in the sand. ‘I never even knew, until I got here.’

If he hadn’t known he was dead already, James would have sworn he just felt his soul leave his body. Even in death, there were still many surprises. _Christ, I need a drink_ , James thinks. He doesn’t suppose the afterlife holds many taverns, regrettably.

\---

‘Does everyone go here after they pass away?’ James ponders aloud. ‘Is there no difference being made between people?’

‘Not as far as I know’, Thomas says. ‘It appears we are all equal in death.’ He turns slightly pale. ‘If that’s the case, my father could be here too’, he says, with a look of disgust.

‘I will kill him if I see him’, James snorts. ‘I don’t care if he’s dead already, I will fucking kill him all over again. And Peter too, that back-stabbing piece of shit.’

Thomas tries to supress the pleased grin that breaks through on his face. ‘Thank you, darling. That is a most comforting thought.’

\---

He doesn’t know how he moves, how he sees, how he speaks, but he does. He feels Thomas and Miranda are with him in every moment. He hears what they say, yet the moment he hears them he knows exactly what they are about to say, as if he’s having a déjà-vu, or maybe as if he is _them_ as much as he is _himself_.

He sees himself, his life, all the things he’s done. His body was a cage that limited his senses, and now that he is free, his abilities to see and to understand are endless.

He sees others, their lives, and what they’ve done. The smallest details and the largest systems. And somehow it is as if, somewhere in his mind, he has always known. The same way he could always have liked passion fruits but didn’t know until he tasted one. The same way he had always known that he preferred the company of men and then Thomas kissed him.

The waves wash over him and he feels calm. _Oh_ , is all he can think. _Oh, I see now_.

\---

They are surrounded by a soft drizzling rain that doesn’t fall but hangs in the air, cool and tender like mist. It reminds James of the springtime rains in London, when the trees were full of crisp green leaf and he could hear birds singing in the yard behind his home.

‘I loved you’, John says. ‘And I still do.’

‘I know’, James says.

‘And you loved me.’

He loses himself in those piercing blue eyes. He would know them in a hundred different lives, and he knows them now, in death. 

‘I did. And still do.’

‘I didn’t see it, back then. How did I not see it? Oh, the things we could have been’, John sighs with a soft smile.

‘It seems that life, while it has to be lived forwards, can only be understood backwards’, James says.

**Author's Note:**

> James' final remark is a quote from Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855):
> 
> "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
> 
> Thank you for reading. Come find me on tumblr - I am @undiscovereduniverse.


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